


The Connor Project

by zeebrown



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: Drug Use, Enemies to Friends, Happy AU, I promise it's not all sad, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, at least a certain someone is alive, dear evan hansen - Freeform, for the most part anyway, if you need me to tag more stuff just say, just a bit, treebros
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-05
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2018-12-11 16:11:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11717868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeebrown/pseuds/zeebrown
Summary: To anyone that knew Evan Hansen, the fact that he loved trees was as obvious as the sky being blue. With that being the case, it was only fair that when a paired project about tree biology was set, Evan's advantage needed to be taken down a notch. In the form of being paired with Connor Murphy.





	1. Panic! At The Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Jared proposes the unimaginable to Evan - talk to Connor Murphy.

**_Tap. Tap. Tap._ **

Evan could hear it all the way from the opposite end of the table.

**_Tap. Tap, tap. Tap._ **

He hit his pen against the book in front of him.

**_Tap, tap. Click. Tap, tap._ **

Fiddling with his pen was not proving to be a good distraction from the other distraction.

**_Click, click, click, click. Tap, tap, tap._ **

**_Thud._ **

The pen dropped onto the open book, Evan’s head following shortly after as he gave up and let out a quiet groan. 

Jared, who had been completely ignoring Evan in the seat next to him up until this point, lowered his comic book and quirked an eyebrow. 

“Problem?”

Evan murmured something barely audible against his book.

“You know, if you stopped making out with the page, I might be able to hear you.”

Evan tilted his head to the side to face Jared, his cheek pressed to the paper, “I can’t concentrate,” his face a picture of defeat. Usually when he was studying he could go for hours, lost in a little world full of facts.

“Welcome to the land of every kid who has ever been to high school,” Jared gestured to the entire library by spreading out his arms, only to frown slightly and retract them, going back to reading his comic, “Well, except for Alana.”

“His music is too loud,” Evan complained, ignoring the fact that Jared had dropped the subject and twitched his head in the direction the music was coming from.

Prioritising finishing a page before glancing in the direction Evan was referring to, Jared changed his line of gaze to find Connor sitting at the far end of the table. 

Connor Murphy: son of Larry and Cynthia Murphy, brother to Zoe Murphy. Connor Murphy: the richest kid to ever dress like he was homeless. Connor Murphy: the boy who looked as if he had had birds nesting in his hair for the last three years. Connor Murphy: the school’s token troubled kid. The boy who smoked pot in the toilets, skipped classes and swore at teachers. Swore at everyone, really. The boy that looked like he could take you down in one swing, despite having the physique of an overgrown string bean. The boy that back in second year, had stood on the roof of the hall, threatening to jump if he was made to go on a field trip to an art gallery. The boy who singlehandedly stopped the school from keeping animals on the premises after letting the school’s hamsters and snakes out of their cages last year.

There he was, hunched over the table, hair forming curtains round his face, scribbling away at a notebook, earbuds in, music blaring. Of course, no-one dared to confront him about the latter for fear of getting a death stare worse than Medusa’s. Even the librarian merely stole the occasional worried glance at him.

Jared who up until this point in time had been too involved in his own reading to notice, really did not give two hoots about the situation. Which was made very clear by the fact that he readjusted himself in his seat and appeared to go back to reading his comic.

“If it’s bothering you that much- go say something,” the boy’s voice was nonchalant, but there was a glint of mischief in his eyes, fully knowing the reaction he was about to receive.

“Wh-what?” Evan’s eyes went wider than a deer that did not know if it was facing headlights or heaven’s glow and shot up so he was sitting straight.

“You heard me. Go and talk to him. It’s not like he can do anything either than do it or tell you to fuck off,” he shrugged and pushed up his glasses, “There’s no printers around.” 

Evan shuddered slightly as he remembered back to that fateful day in second grade before returning to the matter at hand with increased panic. “I am not talking to _Connor_!”

The teen’s voice was a little loud for someone who wanted to avoid conversation and it just so happened that he had timed it perfectly with the few seconds of silence between a song change.

Connor, seemingly a victim of the cocktail party effect, looked up from his sketchbook and across to the other side of the table, frowned as another song started, and placed his attention back to the notebook. 

To Evan however, he felt like he had died right then and there. The boy had blatantly locked eyes with him for an hour until Evan disintegrated with embarrassment. Connor’s stare had bore holes through to the back of his skull. Evan slid down in his chair with a pained grown as Jared peered at him over the top of his comic, holding back a loud laugh. Someone had to respect the library’s sound rules around here.

“Well that was one way to get his attention,” Jared scoffed and nudged Evan’s leg with his foot, “Just go up to him and politely say ‘Excuse me, but could you please turn down your music, everyone can hear it and I can’t concentrate on my studying, thank you.’” Jared paused for a few moments as he watched his friend contemplate the idea, “‘Also your sister’s hot.’”

“ _Jared!_ ” Evan was not Connor and therefor he could receive a death glare from the librarian for being too loud. Evan gave her an apologetic look before turning back to Jared who was currently mastering a shit-eating grin.

It took Evan five minutes to compose himself. Five minutes of fiddling with the edge of his cast and internally screaming as he debated whether or not he should confront Connor. Eventually he decided that he needed to. He needed a safe, quiet place to study otherwise he would feel even less prepared for his exams. Mustering up all the courage he could Evan stood up and started to walk towards Connor, even if it was on slightly shaky legs. The walk to the other side of the table seemed to take forever, each step getting heavier, his vision tunnelling. He could so easily jump ship if he just turned around and walked back. Pausing halfway, Evan turned his head back, looking to Jared for moral support only for his friend to over dramatically mouth ‘ _Your sister’s hot_ ’. Understandably, Evan quickly looked away and shook his head to regather his thoughts.

Connor, who had not looked up since having his name called, was still busy scribbling away in his book. Even when Evan stood next to him he did not look up. Nor when Evan took a step closer and cleared his throat. Nor when Evan said ‘ _Excuse me_ ’. Three times. He looked up on the forth, which was a lot louder, cracked, and accompanied by a hand on his shoulder. Connor slowly looked from the hand to it’s owner’s face, expression unreadable. He paused his music without looking at the screen of his phone.

Evan’s stomach felt as though it fell through the floor and quickly removed his hand and latched it onto the hem of his shirt. He could still abort mission now, but with Connor staring up at him with eyes that Evan was pretty sure belonged to a distant cousin of Lucifer’s, Evan was frozen to the spot. Connor had turned his music off though, and that was a start.

“H-hi. Sorry to bother you. You-Your music. It’s loud- I mean it’s good and I'm sure you like it and I'm sure other people do because they can hear it and haven't said anything to you but- but its very loud and we can all hear it, like literally everyone in the library I’m pretty sure but it’s a library and I can’t concentrate and I kind of need to concentrate so I can study so I have a better chance at- okay, not important right now, but so maybe if you could just be so kind as to maybe sort of uh, turn it down just a slight little bit maybe, p-please. Please?”

Evan had no idea if Connor had even heard any of that. The music was off but maybe it had been playing so loud that Connor had gone deaf because the boy just kept staring up at him, holding his position. Evan had not felt this much suspense since the time when the barista at Starbucks called out his name and he stood up at the same time as someone else.

Then, without breaking eye contact, Connor unlocked his phone and pressed play. The music returned louder than ever and the teen hunched back over his notebook, hair blocking Evan from sight.

“Okay,” Evan managed though he felt as if the action has winded him, and span around on the balls of his feet to retreat back to Jared, eyes screaming ‘ _abort, abort, abort_ ’.

Jared watched as Evan, head hung in defeat, returned to his seat and placed his face squarely inside his book on the table with another pained groan. The boy rolled up his comic and used it to gently pat his friend on the shoulder in a ‘ _there, there_ ’ motion.

“Should have led with ‘Your sister’s hot’.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first fic I have ever written and lord does it show. This is set in an au where the computer lab confrontation never occurred so Connor is alive because I would like to keep my heart intact, thank you.
> 
> ((for updates on writing you can follow my blog i guess? www.michael-sass-bender.tumblr.com))


	2. Batty for Trees

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (sorry for sounding like a broken record) an assignment about trees is set and Evan is a lot less happy about it than he should be.

In a past life, maybe Evan had been a cat. He always chose to sit by a window in classrooms, partially so that he could see the outside world and partially because the feeling of the sun warming him through the glass was wonderfully grounding. Evan would argue that he was more of a sort of plain dog. Jared on the other hand would argue that Evan was a squirrel, based on the fact that he loved the outdoors and was incredibly skittish around humans. That and he was nuts.

When Evan thought of Jared, he could see the boy being a hamster in a previous life. He had no idea why the hamster from the film Bolt sprang to mind, but Jared wholeheartedly agreed. He would be the kind of hamster that would for one minute be sitting, good as gold in the cage but the second you looked away, he would escape. He would be the kind of hamster that would spend his days hiding out and messing up those colourful tubes, just so you had to disassemble and clean them every day. He would be the kind of hamster that just sits there and waits until the very last moment you are about to drop off to sleep, before running a mile a minute on a wheel that no amount of oil could silence.

When Evan thought of Connor, which he probably would not if the boy did not sit in front of him for biology, he definitely could see a cat. Perhaps a siamese cat, something different from the obvious choice of a black cat. His mood could change at the drop of a hat and he would not hesitate to hiss and scratch out if he was unhappy. Not just that though. Evan had seen Connor react the exact same way he had when the sun came out from behind the clouds and shone through the window of the lab. He would turn his face away from the lesson, close his eyes for a few moments and take a deep breath. Jared said it was stupid and there was no other animal Connor could be except a bat. Bat shit crazy.

These were the kind of things Evan thought about when he stared out of the window during lessons. In fact, it was exactly what he was thinking about during his biology lesson the day after the library incident. Sure, he should have been listening to his teacher, Miss Moore, but looking at the board at the front of the class meant looking past Connor’s head and even just the sight of him had embarrassment resurfacing from the corners of Evan’s mind. So instead he stared out of the window, letting the sun warm his face through the glass and became lost in his thoughts of tiny mammals. 

“For someone so interested in the project’s topic, I would have thought you would be paying a little more attention, Mr Hansen.”

Evan’s thoughts were snapped back to the present, his cast hitting the desk with a loud thump as he flinched and tried to babble a string of nonsense words to apologise, letting his volume trail off when his brain caught up with his mouth.

“Very well, I shall repeat myself on behalf of Evan and the rest of you who feel like they have better things to think about that getting credit in this class. This semester’s project is a paired assignment to be composed of a written essay segment married with a presentation that may last no longer than ten minutes. The topic will be forest ecology, but I want you to focus on a few specific species of trees and how they differ from each other. Think: symbiotic relationships. Structure. Processes. I expect a level of depth fit for seniors, not second graders.”

Miss Moore began walking around the lab handing out sheets of paper with the assignment details printed on to each of the desks, narrowing her eyes slightly when she placed one in front of Evan. The poor teen could do nothing but give her a sheepish, apologetic look, only for her to turn around and walk back to the front of the classroom.

“Now. The pairings.”

Evan glued his eyes to the paper lying on his desk, not taking in a word and trying to block out the world around him. If he did not hear Jared’s name being called then that would mean that Miss Moore had left him to work with Evan again. This brought a wave of comfort over Evan as he had never really spoken to anyone else in the class and if he was paired with Jared, then he would definitely take over the talking part of the presentation. If Evan’s last English presentation was anything to go by, he certainly was not very gifted in the public speaking department.

Jared had described it as an experience similar to finding a record in your garage that you have not listened to in years, so you dust off the record player only to find out that the record is broken and it only repeats the words _uh_ and _um_ over and over again until you can no longer take it so you set fire to it to give it the sweet release of death. Evan pretty much swore to never attempt public speaking again after that analogy.

Evan tried not to think too much about his past presentation failures as name after name was listed off. The relief of not hearing Jared’s name was growing and growing until of course, like a broken record, it had to be destroyed.

“Evan Hansen and-“

The teen looked up with a slightly pained expression as his name triggered his attention. He watched with bated breath as she skimmed the list of names on the clipboard in her hand. Her finger traced down the page and Evan could swear he heard nails on a chalk board. She tapped on a name.

“Connor Murphy.”

Turns out that learning that he was paired with Connor Murphy had the same effect on him as falling out of a tree. It did not break his other arm, but it did knock all of the air out of his body. Frozen stiff, Evan tried to inhale as inconspicuously as possible, suddenly hyperaware of his breathing. This could not be happening. There was no way that he was paired with Connor Murphy. Miss Moore knew how Evan coped with group work.

“You have a month from today-“ Miss Moore’s announcement was interrupted but the shrill tone of the school bell sounding, “I expect great things!”

As chairs scraping across the floor drowned out Miss Moore's words and students barged past each other, Evan remained frozen in his seat. Connor Murphy on the other hand was the first kid through the door. His bag must have already been packed before the bell had rung. Evan did not see him leave. He did not see anything in fact. The only thing he seemed to be able to focus on was the sound of white noise in his ear. A sound so debilitating, all of his other senses were obscured. 

Evan was completely oblivious to the fact that Jared had been sitting on top of the desk next to the boy for the last minute, kicking his feet impatiently against the wooden legs, much to Miss Moore's annoyance. Soon they were the last two students in the room.

" _Hello_?" Jared dragged out the word in his third attempt to find any signs of intelligent life left in his friend. "Acorn for brains? You in there, buddy?"

Whether it was the mild reference to trees or what, Evan did not know, but it managed to snap him back into reality. He shuddered.

"Hallelujah! We've made contact!" Jared waved his hands in the air in mock celebration.

"Huh?" Evan managed to look up at Jared with bewilderment streaked across his face.

"Get your shit together, bud, I want out of here before all the pizza in the cafeteria's gone."

"Language, Kleinman," Miss Moore perked up from the front of the classroom whilst gathering her own belongings.

Jared held up his hands in defence with an apologetic grin that disappeared when he turned back to Evan. Evan had not moved an inch and was still staring up at him, eyes glazed. With a roll of his eyes and an aggravated groan, Jared hopped off of the desk and unzipped Evan's bag.

"Get your head out of the clouds, Hansen, do you wanna go eat or not?" the teen asked as he stood back up after packing away Evan's things.

"I don't think I can eat anything," Evan was barely audible, but managed to stand up at the exact moment Jared pulled the chair out from underneath him. Jared mentally cursed himself for not thinking of that sooner. Next time.

"Well, you gotta. Lord knows you won't order anything to eat when you get home tonight and Heidi would give me one of her _I'm not angry I'm just disappointed_  looks if she found out I didn't get you to eat anything," Jared realised it almost sounded as if he cared and quickly took care of the matter by thrusting Evan's backpack against the boy's chest, "Now come on. I'm so hungry I could eat ten dicks."

" _Kleinman!_ "

Jared gave Miss Moore another apologetic grin as he led the way out of the classroom, a still dazed looking Evan in tow. 

How could he be paired with Connor? The absolute last person he would ever want to work with. Evan was probably the absolute last person Connor wanted to work with as well. Saying that, the last time Evan had actually seen Connor work with anyone was when Alana had to do a presentation on Huckleberry Finn with him and he had changed the name to something a little less appropriate. A lot less appropriate. If it was not for the fact that Alana had actually done an amazing job on the project, everyone would have guessed the A she got for her grade was purely down to sympathy.

"Hey, buddy, you in there?"

The sound of Jared leaning up against the lockers with a thud brought Evan back to the present. He had been so lost in his own thoughts that he did not even realise they had walked out of the classroom and down the hallway, all the way to Evan's locker that was right next to the toilets. He also had not heard a word Jared had been saying apparently.

"S-sorry, what?"

Jared rolled his eyes. "I said trust you to get paired with satan incarnate literally the day after you told him to cut his shit out. Remarkable."

"I did not tell him to cut his shit out, Jared. I politely asked him to turn off his music," Evan shuddered at the memory as he unzipped his backpack and took out some books to put in to his locker. His posture was bad enough as it was without having to carry around extra weight.

“Yeah? And look where that got you.”

Evan’s hand froze on the padlock, the combination stuck somewhere in his brain. He blinked. "What am I going to do?"

"You're gonna go back in there and tell her that you can't work with Connor," Jared nudged Evan aside and twisted in the right combination for the lock, "Just say you'll work on your own or ask if you can get put in with someone else's group."

"No no no, I can't do that," Evan shook his head as Jared returned to leaning against the lockers, one foot pressed up against them and his arms crossed- the epitome of high school coolness, "I can't do that. She's already assigned the groups and I don't want to join another group and I can't work on my own because that means I'll have left Connor on his own and not only does that mean that I'll have to work on the project by myself and do all the work by myself- which I'll probably be doing anyway, meaning I'm going to fail either way- it means that Connor will have to do the project on his own and it's a lot of work and you know he won't do it, Jared. And then he'll fail and he'll fail because of me and he'll blame me and he'll hate me even more than he hates me now and that's already more than I can handle. That's a _lot_ of hate Jared. I can't handle that much hate. He hates me."

Jared cocked an eyebrow as he marvelled at the speed of Evan's rambling. He never could understand how one minute the kid would be stuttering and then the next it was like he had downed three red bulls and a coffee so he could talk a mile a minute. Jared was quiet for a few moments, tilting his head from side to side as if he was contemplating something.

"Nah, yeah. You're pretty fucked."

Evan groaned and let his head drop until his forehead hit the bottom of his locker. He was. He was well and truly _fucked_.

"There's not much you can really do, man. I don't suppose he's suddenly going to turn all helpful and be like ‘Yo. Hansen. Don't worry 'bout it, I got this'." For some reason, Connor now had a Brooklyn accent according to Jared.

Evan picked up on this and tilted his head to the side to cock an eyebrow at Jared in confusion.

“Look, Evan, think about it. You go home tonight. You plan out all the shit you want to include in the essay. You start doing a bit of research here and there. You start writing it all out with ease thanks to all that, frankly quite creepy, tree knowledge of yours. Badda bing, badda boom. Before you know it, you’re done. You don’t have to worry anymore. You hand in the essay and you… well, we’ll worry about the presentation part when the time comes. But you can do all that without even having to talk to the psycho. It’ll be fine!”

“Jared, no, you don’t understand,” the boy sounded utterly defeated, but removed his head from inside the locker in favour of filling the space with his books. “I need at least a B in this assignment to make up for the rest of the assessments we’ve done for biology so that I’ll actually pass it. I won’t be good enough on my own. Okay, yeah, maybe I know a bit about trees-“ Jared interrupted with a quiet ‘a lot’, “But you’ve seen my work in biology, Jared, it’s terrible-“ a quiet ‘true’, “There’s no way that I’d get a passing grade, even with that. So I need someone to work with because I can’t do this on my own. Whether I refuse to work with Connor or I give in, I’ll still be doing it all on my own and I can’t do that. There’s no way I can do all this work on top of the work for my other subjects and the studying I’ve got to do. I don’t know what to do, Jared, you know Miss Moore’s not going to let me change partners, and she’s going to make me work with him. But I can’t work with him, Jared, I _can’t_. He’s going to do nothing for the project and then he’s going to make my life hell for getting him a bad grade and I can’t do this, Jared. I can’t work wit-“

Evan’s rambling was suddenly cut off by the sound of his locker slamming shut so loudly it could have given Evan a heart attack. Practically jumping out of his skin, Evan turned to face the source. Jared’s eyes went wide. 

“C-Connor…”

"And how long have you been standing there like Freddie Kruger's less perfectly manicured cousin? Didn't your mom ever tell you it's rude to eavesdrop?" Jared crossed his arms to try and keep his cool demeanour, but he had flinched when the other was revealed.

"Didn't your mom ever tell you it's rude not to fuck off?" came the reply that was practically spat back.

"Ooh, that cut real deep," Jared laughed and shook his head, "Freak."

"J-Jared, d-dont-" Evan's words were quiet, barely audible, and easily overwhelmed by Connor's.

"You." Connor's death glare was situated back squarely on Evan. "You think I want this any more than you do? You don't know shit. What good are you gonna be on a project? You know fuck all, even about your precious trees. You can’t write for shit and don’t get me started on presentations. Why the _fuck_ would I want to be paired with the broken record? You think I’m a freak? I’m not the freak. You’re the fucking freak."

With Connor's last words, he shoved Evan so fiercely that the boy could do nothing but fall to the floor, his cast hitting the metal of the lockers and producing a loud, echoing crash. Connor took one look at the boy on the floor in front of him, as if he was dirt on his shoe and stormed off.

Evan swallowed. He sat still on the floor, cradling his cast. Whispers from people who had just witnessed the confrontation started to get louder and louder. Tears pricked the back of his eyes.

And that was why he did not want to work with Connor Murphy.

"Well," Jared adjusted his glasses, "Good luck with that shit show."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow Jared, you sure like having the last word.
> 
> gahhhhh I'm so sorry this has taken so long! This was intended to be something that was updated weekly but i suffered from a horrific loss of motivation in terms of writing and this month's been super busy and I've taken up multiple other projects (i have some sketches on the go and some embroidery and other pics I've started to write - at least one of them is treebros!) and yeah, lots of excuses and I'm sorry. But still, I honestly cannot thank you enough for the wonderful feedback I have been receiving from just the first chapter alone, it's honestly been overwhelming and I cannot tell you how grateful I am for the likes, comments and questions you guys have been giving me. You've warmed this lil gays heart and made her want to kick ass with her first fic. You are all wonderful and i love you


	3. The Pot Squat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Connor takes a moment to reflect on life. While smoking pot, of course.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *TW: drug use, past suicide attempt, past self harm*  
> (if you need me to add more tags, just say)

A thin plume of smoke escaped Connor Murphy’s barely parted lips. On the ground, lithe fingers held a prison roll of pot. Silence hung in the air around him as he basked in the absence of students. The absence of students and the presence of smoke. He put his earbuds in and hit the play button on his phone, letting go of a drawn out sigh as the music commenced. Another perfect moment in the place he had affectionately dubbed ‘The Pot Squat’.

Connor has discovered the place a couple of weeks ago as he attempted to escape the school grounds- he had just wandered straight through the school gates in the past, but now they kept more of an eye on the security cameras. It turned out to be a perfect little hidden haven for smoking. His new hideout was a small, abandoned, outside area of the school at the back of some windowless buildings and high walls. A tree grew in the centre of the desolate plot, a sorry looking greenhouse in the corner, weeds and wildflowers run amok, adding to the deserted feel. Years back this area of the school used to be for the biology classes to run little experiments and studies outside, but funding dried up and no one had bothered to pick up a trowel since. Much to Connor’s luck.

If anything, the fact that Connor had found this place was a good thing. Sure, he was skipping classes and smoking, but if he did not have this place, he would be doing a lot worse. Take an hour ago for example, when he had confronted Evan Hansen. Past Connor would have pushed Hansen to the ground and gone to the bathroom and punched a mirror until his white knuckles were blood red or ditched school completely and got high on pills in the park.That had happened one too many times. Today though he managed to drag himself to the abandoned hide out and quickly lit up to drown out his poisoned thoughts.

It hurt. It hurt like hell when he heard Evan talk about him. Connor had felt his whole body run hot and start to tremble. Of course Evan would think that of him. Of course he did not want to work with him. Why would he? Connor was useless and a loner and selfish. He knew that. But he did not need to hear it from others.

The boy took a long drag from the tight rollup, his eyes closing in bliss as he let his head fall back against the trunk of the tree, his face tilting up to the brilliant blue sky.

Connor knew what the kids at school thought of him. Teachers pissed him off, of course he swore at them. He had told his art teacher on six separate occasions that he did not want to go to some stupid modern art gallery where all of the exhibits would be bullshit (one literally was a lump of cow shit someone had spray painted gold) and were a poor excuse for art in Connor’s opinion, just a ploy to charge rich bastards insane amounts of money in order to feel more sophisticated. His teacher had not listened so of course he had to make his point in a more extreme way. He was not actually going to jump off of the roof- someone might have drawn around his body in chalk and called it ‘art’. Okay, maybe Connor had been going through his vegan phase - after he watched a bunch of animal welfare activist documentaries from the seventies - when he thought it would be a good idea to set free all of the animals his high school kept. The idea probably would have been better executed if all of the animals were not kept in the same room. Connor probably did the school a favour - they did not have to feed the snakes for another week. As for the printer incident? She deserved it. Connor was a damn good line leader.

Truth be told, no matter what management techniques he tried, Connor could not control his anger. He had been through three therapists in his lifetime and after the third, Larry claimed Connor was not trying hard enough and declared him a lost cause. He refused to pay for another person that his son could lash out at.

Connor’s grip on the cigarette tightened instinctively as he thought about it. It felt like he had spent years of his life in doctor’s waiting rooms and psychologist’s offices. He had been psychoanalysed, medicated, talked at, given breathing exercises- all to no prevail. He even still had the journal the second therapist had given him in the hopes that they could track his mood swings day by day to find his triggers. After a week of writing ‘EVERYTHING’, the idea was scrapped. Not one to waste paper, Connor had ripped out those pages and repurposed the journal into a sketchbook. Now completely filled, the book had been shelved for months, undisturbed.

Flecks of black paint fell into the grass as Connor picked away at the polish on his fingers. He would have to redo them soon anyway, they were looking rather worse for ware. The nail polish started off as just an experiment to see what it would look like on him. Numerous members of bands that he listened to wore it and pulled it off and Zoe’s seemed to turn out alright. On a day that he had decided to skip school, Connor had gone into Zoe’s bedroom and took a small bottle of black nail polish, barely used, and run back to his room to try it. Rather pleased with the result of his first attempt, albeit a little messy around the edges as black is not the most forgiving colour to paint with, he kept it on and wore it at the dinner table that night. Larry, of course, had something to say about it, and told him to get upstairs and take it off. Leaving the table with a flip of his still full plate, Connor stormed out of the room. The boy sat on his bed, fuming as his music blared, shaking the walls, and vowed that not a day would go by where his nails would be bare.

Connor blinked himself back into the present, finding crescent shaped indents in his palm. One of his therapists, again, the second one if he remembered correctly, had told him to ball his hands into fists when he started to feel angry, in an attempt to focus all of his negative energy into one spot. Unfortunately, that one spot ended up being a lot of walls in the Murphy household.

He could not help his anger. He also made no excuses for it. If something annoyed him, be it a teacher, Larry, a therapist, even himself, Connor’s anger just took over. It was like a thick, dark cloud formed in his brain, clogging his vision, blinding him, taking over his actions. Sometimes he blacked out for mere seconds, one time it took him a full hour to snap back to normal. It would take him a few moments after gaining full consciousness to decipher the full extent of the damage he had caused while possessed by his thoughts.

In an ideal world, he would not self harm. Years and years of it left reminders on his arms and thighs. Tiger stripes or lightning marks, whatever you called it, Connor called it bullshit. He hated it. But when the dark cloud took over, he had no control. He would come back to the present and the deed would be done. Whether he scratched at his skin until it bled or used one of the blades he had hidden around his room that his mom had failed to find, the cloud would take over until it faded and left behind the pain.

A little while after he first started harming was when he had taken up using drugs. At first it was just a couple of painkillers from the bathroom cabinet, left over from Larry’s surgery, then he was getting pot from a kid in school and then he was in the park. Connor had tried that twice. Ending it all.

The first time was after he had got suspended from school for the third time, he could not even remember why, it was so stupid. It had been a rough week and Connor’s head was screaming and nothing he was doing helped. He sat on a park bench late at night and and examined a half-empty container of painkillers that he found in his satchel. Smoking, taking pills, it all helped to drown out the excruciating noises that plagued his mind. They gave him control over his thoughts. Ending things would be the ultimate form of control. A way to stop the thoughts altogether. He took one every fifteen minutes, trying to build himself up to the end, but after two hours he threw up into some bushes and walked home, eyes red and stinging. Cynthia was there on the sofa when he arrived and all it took was one look at his tear stained mother for Connor to break down in her arms. The next morning they arranged to meet a third therapist.

The second time the containers were full. Two of them. Cynthia found him out cold on the floor in front of the park bench, surrounded in vomit. There was no new therapist the next day. Just a hard hospital bed, a drip and blood tests.

Connor squeezed his eyes tightly and let his chin drop to his chest as the song quietened along with his thoughts. He was never going to let himself get that bad ever again.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me!”

The silence of changing between two songs was broken by the exclamation of disbelief. Connor’s head shot up and he quickly stubbed out the joint on the tree’s trunk, only to see someone retreating rather quickly from the scene. A figure wearing a blue striped shirt.

Connor looked back down to the deceased joint on the floor.

“For fuck sake.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Evan! Language!
> 
> okay so first off i know i have to apologise for how long it has been since the last update (sorry) and how short this chapter is (also sorry). Same old excuse, I'm busy and now i've started back at university so it'll probably only get worse (also also sorry). But i can only thank you from the bottom of my poor shrivelled heart for your continued support, y'all amazing and i hope you find money on the ground
> 
> secondly I'm sorry it's a lil bit of a dark chapter, i hope no-one's too upset by it and if you're at all affected by the themes mentioned in it, i'm always here if you need to talk
> 
> (ALSO we reached 69 kudos and yes, jared snickered)
> 
> ((for updates on writing you can follow my blog i guess? www.michael-sass-bender.tumblr.com))


End file.
